Council calendars show dropoff

Faulconer, Alvarez have fewer entries on city business

Two City Council members running for San Diego mayor have cut back their official schedules as they have revved up their efforts to win the city’s top job, a U-T Watchdog review of their calendars shows.

The review considered their calendar entries for events, meetings and other items of council business in September and October of 2012, and compared them to the same time period this year.

For David Alvarez, his calendar items fell to 178 this year from 229 last year, a 22 percent drop.

For Kevin Faulconer, he booked 101 entries this fall compared to 196 last year, a 48 percent drop-off.

Alvarez told the Watchdog that some much-needed vacation, as well as using his lunch hours for campaigning, are the reasons. Still, he says he’s maintained a rigorous schedule of city duties.

“I’ve attended every single City Council meeting, every board I sit on,” Alvarez said. “I’ve not neglected to attend any of those.”

Faulconer's campaign said he has the same attendance record on official duties and the numbers for the remainder of his datebook are deceptive, that he is doing many of the same things but calendaring them separately to make sure there's no politics on city time.

“Even it means I do less time campaigning, so be it,” Faulconer said. “On the other days I’m out there, talking to voters. Out there, making sure people know I’m running for mayor… I’m out there day and night and weekends.”

Despite ratcheting back some official duties, both Faulconer and Alvarez continue to collect their full $75,000 city salaries.

Former Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, a Qualcomm executive, has taken a voluntary pay cut from that company while running for mayor. The Watchdog could not review his official calendar from his time in the Assembly because his campaign did not respond to a request for the documents.